


Temper

by LaBelleetlaloup



Series: Forging a Pack [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, POV Stiles, Pack Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-08-28 08:59:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8439499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaBelleetlaloup/pseuds/LaBelleetlaloup
Summary: The Alpha Pack is circling in and everyone's on edge. Derek's temper has begun to fray and Stiles maybe needs to be concerned about his (lack) of self preservation instincts.





	

It had only taken one whiff of not-my-alpha scent to drive them off the lacrosse field that afternoon. It had been too close for comfort.

Lydia was sitting on the bench with Erica, going over some math concept that Erica didn’t feel secure about for the test. The rest of the wolves had been testing their skills against Stiles and Danny, trying to see what seemed like skilled talent and what would start the wrong people asking dangerous questions. They had months yet until they were even starting up the track season, much less the next lacrosse season, but it had seemed like a good idea when they came up with it at the lunch table. Stiles and Danny would still be at peak performance with the season just ended a few weeks back and Stiles’ ribs were all healed up, although they were still avoiding hitting one another. The lacrosse field was under video surveillance, being part of the high school campus, and it was broad daylight in the middle of the afternoon. It had sounded safe.

Then Boyd’s head had gone up. Jackson and Erica and Isaac all turned their noses to the air. Danny looked off to the edge of the Preserve. Stiles looked to Lydia. Lydia was looking out to the field.

“What is it?” Stiles asked.

“Has to be part of the alpha pack,” Jackson answered. They all fled off the field, hurriedly stuffing their belongings into the closest bag and quickly piling into the cars.

By silent agreement, everyone drove over to the loft. They all rushed inside together, and crowded into the elevator. Thankfully the creaks were long since fixed. From the elevator, everyone burst into Derek’s loft in near a dead sprint. Derek flung himself down from the loft. Peter appeared from the kitchen at a more reasonable pace.

“What happened? Is anyone hurt?” Derek demanded, already scenting the air for the answer as he asked.

“We’re fine!” Stiles assured him as he crossed to sit down on the couch. He had been a rather sedentary creature while his ribs were healing and the adrenaline crash was hitting a little hard.

“We smelled the alpha pack while we were…” Boyd attempted to explain.

Derek didn’t let him finish. He was really, truly pissed. Stiles wasn’t sure he had ever seen Derek actually lose his temper before. But Derek shifted and was snarling, barely managing to form any coherent words. Peter had disappeared into the rafters. Danny fled right back out the door, presumably to take his car to his own house instead. Lydia was inching that way herself. The wolf betas weren’t heading towards the door but they were cowering. Stiles had already put himself on the couch before realizing he had left a livid alpha between him and the exit, so he was sitting very, very still.

“You should not have put yourselves in that kind of danger!” Derek finally managed to get out understandably. He maybe had a point. Probably they should have realized that video surveillance would not be much deterrent to criminal werewolves.

“We’re sorry!” Erica exclaimed.

“And you!” Derek whirled around to face Stiles. Stiles flinched. Suddenly there was an alpha in his face.

“I may have misjudged the situation,” he murmured. Derek growled. He wrapped his hand around Stiles’ throat, claws resting on his skin. Stiles stopped trying to defend himself.

“Alpha,” Boyd said quietly. Derek’s attention flickered for a moment but he hadn’t turned even his head. His fangs receded a little.

“You could have been killed, Stiles.” Derek’s grip tightened just slightly. “You aren’t invulnerable.”

“I’m sorry.” Stiles knew he wasn’t invulnerable.

“I don’t want an apology. I want you not to put yourself in danger like this.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Derek growled back at Stiles. “I didn’t!”

“Well you shouldn’t do it at all!”

“I can’t control where other people go or what they do!” Stiles protested. Derek finally let go of Stiles’ throat. He heard a loud exhale, likely of relief, from over where the rest of the pack was standing. Stiles really needed to have a conversation with himself about this, because he really hadn’t been all that concerned.

“All of you could have been killed,” Derek just sounded exhausted now. “I know you think I’m exaggerating. But they’re toying with us. You can’t just go traipsing around on the Preserve. Yes, I know it’s our territory. I don’t care if you just stayed on what used to be the public trails. This is an entire pack of alphas, we can’t even be sure how many, who slaughtered their own packs and certainly would have no scruples slaughtering all of you.”

Peter finally descended from the rafters and gracefully dropped down on the couch beside Stiles.

“They’re teenagers, Derek. I think between how frightened they already were and your display, they’ve probably learned their lesson.” Peter put a hand on Stiles’ knee. “Alright?” he whispered. Stiles nodded. Peter squeezed his knee before he stood up. Stiles stood up as well.

“I’m sorry I snapped,” Derek muttered.

“We’re sorry that we scared you,” Stiles said, brushing against Derek’s shoulder. “But we really weren’t being that stupid. They’ve gotten worse.”

“Where were you, then?”

“The lacrosse field. It’s under camera surveillance, because it’s on school property. We were the only ones out there after school with the season a month over, but it seemed safe enough when we thought of it.”

“Shit.”

“What are we doing, alpha?” Peter asked.

“Do you have a way to get them to respect our claim to this territory and leave us alone?” Stiles demanded angrily.

“No,” Peter admitted.

“Then stop undermining Derek.”

“I…” Stiles glared Peter down and Peter closed his mouth and tipped his head to the side. Stiles nodded. Derek put a hand on Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles turned his head.

“For the moment, we’re just going to have to be even more careful. I don’t want to surrender this territory. This is our home. And you have to finish these last couple weeks of school. But if they’re still getting more brazen once you’re free for the summer, I’ll get you all out of here for a while. This kind of stress isn’t good for any of us and there’s no indication that this pack of alphas have been trying to actually take any territory, just harass the local alphas into joining them.”

“Sometimes by taking out a few members of the pack to make it easier to kill the rest?” Peter suggested snidely.

“I would hand you over willingly,” Derek said with a smile. Peter grimaced.

“So, if we could all up and leave for a week or so on vacation, they’d probably just move on to the next territory? They wouldn’t follow us?” Stiles was less concerned by the nebulous idea of territory. Someone else’s claws or fangs at his throat would likely be much more frightening. He had been desperately frightened with a gun aimed at his head, once. Derek should be an exception, not the rule.

“I really would be shocked if they followed us out of territory.”

“But what if something happens before school gets out?” Lydia protested. “Saying that we can leave if it’s too bad in a few weeks is all well and good, but it doesn’t address the weeks we still have to be here. And how, exactly, do you think that you could manage to convince all our parents to let us go on vacation? Sure, Stiles’ dad probably wouldn’t complain, and you’ve got custody of Isaac, but that’s only two of us. My mother might very well pitch a fit rather than let me go with a bunch of teenage boys, a girl that ran off to marry her boyfriend and was back within the month, and some twenty-something who didn’t manage to graduate college.” There were several flinches.

“Your mother has no ill associations with me,” Peter pointed out. “None of your parents do. As far as they remember, I was a model citizen who generously donated my time and money to charitable acts and then suffered a horrible, grisly accident. I’ve finally recovered. They’ll assume I also underwent extensive plastic surgery. But that’s the extent of their knowledge of me. So I’ll be the responsible adult figure chaperoning your little teenage rebellion. They’ll all let you go, Lydia.”

Stiles considered that briefly and nodded. “Peter has a point. Until after the fire, no one in Beacon Hills associated him with anything bad, and only a very limited number of people even know he was responsible for the murder spree. He really did do a lot of charity stuff and volunteer work in the community beforehand. If you were trying to raise money for anything, Peter was who you went to. So they probably would entrust their children to him.”

“This is terrifying,” Lydia muttered.

“Serial killers are only serial rather than murderers because they look perfectly reasonable and normal so they don’t get caught,” Stiles pointed out. “Lots of murderers plan to have multiple kills. The ones who already can’t integrate into society in any meaningful way don’t get to multiples because they make a compelling suspect for the first case.”

“Also, money and social privilege,” Jackson pointed out. “Unless you get lucky, a court-appointed attorney is likely going to just keep pushing for a guilt plea. If you or your family can pay for a good attorney and enough of their time for attention to detail…”

“Also true.”

“Could we use that to get these alphas off our back?” Isaac asked. “They can’t be integrating into society, but they have to be sleeping somewhere. Even werewolves have to sleep and eat.”

Stiles shook his head. “These are the kind of werewolves the Argents should be concerned with. They’re murderers that a prison can’t hold.” Isaac conceded the point with a shudder.

“So far they’ve only killed other werewolves,” Peter pointed out. “Which is why the Argents have decided that they aren’t a problem.”

“Fewer werewolves is fewer werewolves, no matter who’s killing them,” Jackson sighed heavily. “And the human members of wolf packs don’t count as human enough to warrant their concern. Lovely, upstanding citizens.”

“Certainly should act like it’s reasonable to be shocked that someone would accuse your sister of murdering entire packs,” Stiles agreed. Jackson looked disappointedly unsurprised.

“Why isn’t there someone who handles these sorts of matters? Some sort of intermediary for disputes between packs?” Erica demanded. “That seems like something that someone would have managed to come up with at some point.”

“Typically it would be handled by an emissary or by an alpha of a pack that both of the offending packs are allied with. My sister liked to play intermediary, especially when it came to territory disputes and hunters causing alarm. Unfortunately, we don’t have an emissary, and even if we could get the packs we used to have alliances with to ally with a fledgling pack made mostly of teenagers on name alone, this alpha pack doesn’t have any allies by choice. And I don’t think they have an emissary either.”

“So there is a system but we can’t access it.” Erica pouted and crossed her arms. “This sucks.”

Derek had a sympathetic expression. “I would have already tried mediation if it was open to us. I did try to contact some people that Laura and I knew in New York and some of the local people I remembered mom knowing, but we are sort of locked out of any sort of reasonable help from outside our pack at the moment.”

“Your mom had an emissary?” Stiles asked.

“Deaton says he was mom’s emissary.”

“But he wants nothing to do with us.”

“I don’t remember anything about Alan Deaton being our emissary,” Peter grumbled.

“You forgot where the library was and that you were married.”

“Little brat,” Peter snapped.

“Stiles has a point that your memories aren’t entirely reliable, uncle.”

“He didn’t have to be rude.”


End file.
